Partial Amnesia in a Familiar World.

She blinked rapidly and slowly sat up.

Glancing around, the recently turned eighteen-year-old yawned slightly before frowning heavily, "Why do I have... two sets of memories?"

Scrunching her nose up, Katarina threw her legs off the bed and absentmindedly kicked the air to get some blood flow going and help wake up a bit. Admittedly, she would've liked to have gone by the name belonging to the other set of memories as they seemed to feel more natural. But she honestly couldn't remember the name meant for those at all. Every moment where she was identified by herself or another in any fashion was completely blank.

After a few moments, she sighed and shrugged, "Probably for the best. I don't want to get tangled up mentally. And I still seem to have everything important."

Katarina frowned heavily and wondered why she had gained the other memories at this point in her life. Her memories from the other world had plenty of things called 'isekai novels' that involved reincarnation. However, all of those had some sort of premise for awakening the memories. Some had them from somewhere before or after birth, some involved hitting their head, and some involved extreme stress or trauma. But none of that had occurred here.

In fact, she had been quite happy that she was finally going to meet her fiancé, Prince Edward. Marrying him was the light at the end of a long and lonely tunnel, since her family had basically abandoned her. It wouldn't have been so bad with friends, but most of the children at the Noble Preparatory Academy seemed to be wary of getting to involved with the daughter from one of the most powerful noble families in the kingdom. The rest were mostly enemies of her family, or simply from neutral families and unwilling to risk spreading the idea their family was siding with one of the 'factions' that apparently existed in the kingdom.

True, her family did sign her up for monthly shipments of makeup at age twelve. And they did send her a dress just before each holiday event along with before her birthday. But she had a feeling those were only meant for her to practice looking good for Edward. There were never any of the things other noble children got, like chocolates or the occasional flower. And the messages from family members all the other children seemed to be talking about half the time were nowhere to be found no matter how many times she checked the mailbox.

And above all, there was never anyone that came to pick her up. Not on her birthday, not for any of the festivals, not for any of the events. Nothing. There was never a carriage for her, no matter how many hours she went and waited on a bench near the academy gates.

But she didn't need... them... did she? It was fine. She would soon have Edward. Even if he had a stupid cliché name that horribly reminded her of that train wreck movie series her friends had tricked her into watching a few years back, he was still...

Katarina stiffened.

Prince Edward, of the Dragonforest Family. Katarina Shadowbloom. The Royal Academy of Bricuria Kingdom, which starts at age eighteen and ends at age twenty-two.

Slowly, her eyes widened in disbelief, "Is this a real version of that cruddy Otome game I play for the open world aspect and awesome class system? No... that can't... am I the... oh... I am..."

Clutching her head with both hands, Katarina slowly pushed them back until they linked behind her neck as stared at the ground.

Memories played out of a digital version of herself following the prince around like a duckling, of him ignoring her heartlessly, of doing her best to ward off any others trying to win his interest, and of the 'main protagonist' stealing his affections as easily as breathing... albeit with a week by week and event by event walkthrough to make the Otome portion go faster.

Katarina felt an urge to cry, but was also strangely numb.

As much as she suddenly wanted to hate the 'main protagonist', it was clear she was not the problem in her and Edward's relationship. In the paths where the 'main protagonist' chose not to take the Prince Edward route, Katarina never became queen. It was always someone else. A random woman from an upper or middle noble family, with the occasional commoner thrown into the mix. There was even a blog dedicated to trying to find some pattern in their personalities or looks, but it seemed that anyone except her would do.

She let her hands drop to her lap and stared at them, "Is there something wrong with me?"

Sitting in silence for a long while, Katarina closed her eyes with a look of defeat, "Whatever it is, the point is clear. I can't consider Edward as an ally unless I get to school and he doesn't act like he did in the game."

Her digital self tried various things depending on what the player tried, with hidden scenes where she went absolutely nuts if the player... 'pushed the right buttons'. But nothing ever worked out between Prince Edward and herself.

So what was the point in trying? Someone, though apparently not Einstein despite rumors, had once said 'the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result'. Admittedly, there was some issue with that; such as situations where a very tiny chance of something occurring existed. But she considered it to be solid advice for most situations.

Irritatingly, she could not even remember what happened to herself in a standard game due to being so uninterested in the optional Otome portion of the game. She had only even played the Otome portion to get the 'Harem' route bonus, which gave bonuses to all aspects of gameplay rather than the 'basic Edward fighting package' that came with skipping the tutorial.

True, she was not exactly interested in all aspects of the game... but there was a lot to do it in and the 'basic Edward fighting package' had not really helped with most of it. Stock market minigames, arena-based monster battles worthy of being copywrited by a certain 'pocket monster' company, farming, city management, assassin's guild quests, ruin exploration, PvE multiplayer dungeon matchmaking, and PvP country vs country matchmaking with destructible castles to fight over. There was even a patch which enabled the option to start a character with 'Online Server Status'; which allowed the user to meet other such 'online server' characters in the open world without inviting or being invited by friends.

She glared slightly, "How am I supposed to avoid a certain fate, if I can't even remember what happened to me in the game? I know some of the villains and villainesses ended up with execution, banishment, were forced to become a nun or monk under heavy vows to faithfully serve the priests and priestesses, or were stripped of all rights as nobles. But what actually happened to me? I don't think it's execution since digital me only tried to kill her in the hidden scenes. Maybe I shouldn't worry about it then? I mean, even if I become a nun or monk... most of their job is just maintaining the church or helping establish a new one somewhere. It's hard work, but not outright cruel."

Sighing, Katarina stood up and used a cleansing spell before switching out her nightclothes to a set of newly acquired school clothes for the Royal Academy.

Freezing once more, she stared at her hand, "I... can use magic?"

Her eyes widened, "Of course I can use magic! This is a world filled with magic! Basic spells are taught from age ten to eighteen! There's even a class system that we will be taught the command to access once we enter the academy! And we've spent the last year learning about the different classes to help us theory-craft potential builds!"

She clapped her hands with a burst of laughter, "Builds!"

Twirling in excitement, she fell back onto her bed, "The loophole build! The one I meant to use for an evil overlord theme in the nation RTS PvP matchmaking, only to stumble on that little clause! Even if there's still stigma against necromancer, warlock, and overmind like in game... I should be able to avoid any of it since I'll be cutting out the actual negatively viewed things by only queuing them up as partial classes."

With a happy squealing giggle, she quickly pulled a pen and some paper from her inventory and got to work remembering all the details, "Main class: Archmagi. Full Spec classes: Druid and Paladin. Partial classes: Necromancer, Warlock, Overmind, and Conjurer. Crafting Classes: Golem Maker, Enchanter, Runic Blacksmith, Miner. And then the unique skills were... wait no... I should put them in order of what level I wanted to get them, right? Yes."

So focused on piecing together her desired future, Katarina spent almost the entire day squirreled away in her room as she waited to head off to the royal academy.

Slowly, the build began to take shape and she smirked, "I can work with this."

Then paused and tilted her head thoughtfully, "Hold on, what was I thinking about a few seconds ago? It seemed pretty important. Or was it a few minutes ago? Ah, whatever... it's probably fine."